Geoffrey Girard

I was so excited when I read the premise of Project Cain. It sounded like it would be a cool and interesting read, sadly I was quite disappointed. The book isn't at all what I expected. I thought we'd have this cool main character who was essentially good but struggled with a darker side of himself since he's DNA is the same as Jeffrey Dahmer. I expected a lot more action and mystery and suspense. What I got felt like a huge history lesson. There was a lot of information about different famous serial killers, how they killed their victims, how they got their nicknames, and while some of it was interesting, I felt NONE of it was relevant to the story. There was also a lot of information about clones as well so it was a history lesson and a science lesson. How any of it is important to the plot of the story is beyond me. I also did not like that there was no actual dialogue in the book. The whole time it was he said this, he said that. This book did way too much telling and not nearly enough showing. The ending had quite a bit of action, which makes the book a tiny bit better but overall it was just way too much information and not enough of the actual story. This book had great potential and it's sad that it just wasn't executed well, 2 stars.… (meer)

Anyone not expecting a book about serial killers, or in this case, clones of those serial killers, to not be sick and twisted is fooling themselves. What we have here is a solid first novel that is genuinely creepy and not for the squeamish.

What's also a little creepy is the encyclopedic knowledge about serial killers, their lives and their 'careers' demonstrated by (and freely acknowledged by) the author. He uses this knowledge to build a world where he can freely explore the issues of nurture vs. nature and the consequences of unfettered scientific inquiry and military avarice along the lines of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The characters and settings here are well-drawn. The prose is strong and the plot well-developed.

What knocked me out of the story from time to time were the glaring inconsistencies and implausibilities in the science. Is this about cloning and genetics and free will? Or is it about a nerve gas that overrides all three? It tried to be about both, using the latter to provide a (superfluous) ticking clock to add urgency to the story about the former.

It will be interesting to see what this author does in the future. He's already published a young adult novel that is a companion to this book.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review.
… (meer)